Harold Corwin

NGC 1440 = NGC 1442. WH's offset from 54 Eridani should be 1 deg 10 armin north rather than the 10 arcmin that he recorded for II 594. Though John Herschel and Dreyer both noticed this, as did Auwers and Schoenfeld (see the GC and NGC Notes), they both also included both of WH's entries for the galaxy.

John Herschel has a curious note appended to his two observations of this in the CGH Observations:

N.B. Both observations agree in making the degree of PD 108 -- whereas it appears in the reduction of my Father's observations as 109.

Taken at face value, it shows how obvious this particular error was. But it is recorded under h2583 = H II 458 which has the correct offset from its comparison star, 20 Eridani. As I noted, it is WH's observation for II 594 that is incorrect. So, even John Herschel was somehow confused here.

In any event, the galaxy carries the two NGC numbers from the Herschels, and the identity is certain.

It also happens that the NGC numbers 1430 and 1458 probably apply to this galaxy (see those numbers for those stories). This makes this object one of the few with four entries in the NGC.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

Harold Corwin

NGC 1458 is probably identical with NGC 1440 = NGC 1442 (and probably NGC 1430 as well; see the other three numbers for those stories). This is one of Leavenworth's Leander McCormick discoveries with an RA that is about 2 minutes of time too large. When that is corrected, his observation falls on NGC 1440, with his description ("m = 13.0, D = 0.3', R; [planetary]; neb?") more or less matching the bright inner part of the galaxy.

This is not a certain identification, though. There is no sketch, and Leavenworth did not mention any nearby stars which we could use to verify the identity. Nevertheless, I'm fairly confident of the match, so use colons in the position table rather than question marks.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

Harold Corwin

NGC 1430 is probably NGC 1440 = NGC 1442. In the same email from April 2016 in which Yann Pothier questions the NGC 1424/1429 problem, he writes

Maybe I missed something here, but am I the only one inclined to think that this might be identical to NGC 1440? The RA difference of 1m 35s is within the reasonable range for the Leander McCormick team, and the position angle is appropriate.

This is indeed a reasonable question. Leavenworth claims two observations of this object and his description "m = 15.4, Dxd = 0.6x0.4, E 20deg, sbMN" is appropriate (perhaps aside from the magnitude) for the center of NGC 1440.

I've adopted this as a probable identification, and have demoted the star that Wolfgang and I had pointed to earlier to a double question mark.

This galaxy is probably also NGC 1458 (which see), also found by Leavenworth.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

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